Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Today we finally got to visit the Toronto School of Circus Arts. Due to traffic problems, we ended up with very little time there... but we still got a glimpse, and got to speak with the school's owner, Decker LaDouceur.

This morning, the facility was being rented out for a special event; you can see the group in the picture. And you can also get a glimpse of the beautiful space... one side of it, with the flying trapeze rig, has 39' ceilings, and 14 aerial fabrics hanging. This winter they're expanding, knocking through a wall to add an additional 5000 square feet of space. The light that comes through the windows is particularly wonderful.

TSCA is the first privately-owned circus school that Greg and I have come across in our travels, so we were especially interested to talk with Decker about the history of the place and its current operations. He and his wife do the lion's share of the work, from admin to teaching to cleaning! They have 18 total on staff, and more than 400 weekly students. It is a labor of love, and heartwarming to see. The school has been in operation for 13 years, 3 years in its current space.

I wish we'd had more time, but very glad that we got to see the school, in any case.

No comments:

Post a Comment

My husband, Greg Kennedy, was a solo artist in Cirque du Soleil's TOTEM from 2010-2014. This blog chronicles our family's adventures - we left our lives in Philadelphia to join the circus for 4 years, and now we have left TOTEM and returned to Philadelphia.

Goodreads

I was moved to buy Sheryl Sandberg's book after reading the great Time Magazine article on her recently. I was disappointed to find out that the book really didn't have much more in it than the article - all of her main points in the bo...

Every once in a while I have to pick up a classic that I missed along the way. And with the new Baz Luhrmann film in theaters, this seemed like the perfect time to tackle The Great Gatsby. It was an easy read and a somewhat interesting...

It was a good story, I didn't like the writing style. Too much detail in dull sections (random bits of self-analysis or philosophy) and not enough in the most interesting parts (the interaction between the narrator and Hanna, and the va...

A fluffy and ridiculous story, but impossible not to enjoy. Elizabeth Gilbert's writing is engaging, painfully honest, and self-deprecating. It's a lighthearted memoir that still manages to touch on a lot of 35-yr-old-woman quandaries ...

Amazing. Spectacular. Oskar Schell as a character is wonderful and astonishing. I was drawn to him, and his story, and his excruciating brilliance. Constantly thinking about my own children, their quirks and their inner lives, but it'...